


The Sunrises After

by 1MissMolly



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Friendship, Hurting John, Minor Character Death, Off Screen Death, Sad, Understanding Sherlock, suicide mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4415696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1MissMolly/pseuds/1MissMolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock consoles John after devastating news. </p><p>This is very sad story. I am a great fan of the ACD stories and know that Mary doesn't last long in them. Also Moffat and Gatiss have said that season four of Sherlock will be very emotional.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sunrises After

He sat and watched as the sun rose over the buildings. He used to enjoy watching sunrises. In the desert it would take almost an hour of the sky changing colors from dark blues and purples to intense reds and oranges to the brilliant yellows and golds till the blazing white sun lifted high enough in the sky to banish the last of the night’s cold air and warm the desert. But here in the city, the sun rose slower. The sky didn’t have the same clarity and intensity of color. The sun’s heat seemed weaker and unable to penetrate the grey skies.

It wasn’t raining. He thought it should be raining. Wasn’t rain the harbinger of sadness? He thought he should be sad. It was expected of him to be sad. She was gone. She slipped away during the night. He should be sad . . . or angry . . . or . . . something, anything. He couldn’t feel anything. He felt hollow.

The sun finally cleared the tops of the buildings and its rays caressed across his face. He blinked his eyes as the brightness slightly blinded him. He wondered if he stared long enough he could actually blind himself, then he wouldn't have to see. He wouldn’t have to see the anxious faces watching him, waiting for him to say or do something to acknowledge her death. He wouldn’t have to see the shambles his life would be now without her. He wouldn’t have to see the mistakes he had made and the failure he was as a husband. He wouldn’t have to see his wife dead in her coffin.

That thought made him blink and push the first tears back. Yes, Mary was dead. Suddenly and unexpectedly. Their child was gone too, but he had never really met her so he couldn’t understand the tear to his psyche the death cause. As a doctor, John knew the stages of mourning but this was happening in the wrong order. It was if he had first gone to acceptance and skipped all the other stages. There was no anger, no sadness, no fear. He hadn’t tried to barter with the fates for his wife’s and child’s lives. He just stood calmly in the hallway as the trauma doctor told him they were gone. Then John walked out of the hospital and up onto this roof.

He had been sitting here for hours. Watching London move on without him or his family. He watched the movement of the traffic and the planes in the sky. He watched the city wake up and start its hectic morning. He watched the world come to life without his family. Alone. Always alone.

John felt a warmth as a thought occurred to him. ‘ _No one would miss him. He could just be gone too and no one would miss him.’_

His wife and child were gone, thanks to a drunk driver. His sister was in her own drunken haze unaware of what day it was or even if it was day and not night. His friends were scattered and rarely reached out to him. His career was not what he had aspired for. He was a face in the crowd. A failure at everything and nothing. There would be no mark left behind to acknowledge his existence. It would be so simple . . .

He heard the whine of the hinges on the roof door. The bang of the heavy metal door as it was opened and allowed to swing shut loudly. It was a warning, a courtesy to the man that he was no longer alone. John could hear the leather soled shoes walk across the graveled roof. From his peripheral vision he saw the swirl of a black wool coat and the man sitting down beside him on the roof’s edge. He heard the heavy sigh.

“Not the best view of the city, John.” The voice was deep.

Always unemotional, but after years, John knew just by the way he said his name that the man felt the weight of sadness. _‘Jawn’_ John never truly understood why the man would say his name with a hint of a French accent. He and his family were very British. Very proper. He relished the opportunity to correct other people’s grammar although he appeared to be burdened by it.

The silence between the two men carried out for several minutes. Then the new comer spoke again.

“People are looking for you.”

John didn’t answer him. He waited.

“Have you made your decision yet?”

“What decision?” John finally asked.

“Whether to jump or not?”

John finally turned and looked at the dark haired man. Sherlock was not watching him. His silver blue eyes were scanning the city as John had just a few minutes earlier.

“Why would I be deciding that? Not all of us choose to commit suicide when our worlds are crumbling around us.” He couldn’t let Sherlock know how correct he was.

John could see the verbal punch had landed on the mark. Sherlock’s eyes betrayed the pain before quickly returning to a neutral appearance.

“Why else would you be up here?”

“To think.”

Sherlock turned and looked at his friend. “John, I’m sorry.”

John looked into the silver blue eyes and saw the emotion behind the three words. That’s when it hit. The pain, the anger, the loss. Mary and the child were gone. He would never see her smile again. He would never hold his daughter. He felt the constriction around his chest. He couldn’t breathe. In one millisecond, John went from being in control to totally collapsing into his friend’s arms, crying.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair. He should be allowed some happiness in his life. He is a good man, why can’t he have his happy ending?

Sherlock held John tightly to his body. He let his friend cry without saying a word. John was grateful for that. He couldn’t handle being told that caring was not an advantage. That sentimentality was a defect. He just need to finally cry. She was gone.

The two men sat arm in arm of the roof of the hospital for an hour. They didn’t talk. There was nothing that needed to be said. John cried and Sherlock let him. When John felt there was nothing left in him, he pulled back and looked at Sherlock’s black coat. At the red stitching on the mammoth thing. He couldn’t look Sherlock in the face yet.

“I should have been driving.” John said.

“Would it have made any difference? You both would probably be dead now.”

“Good, then we would be together.”

“No, it would not be good. You’re not done yet, John.” Sherlock’s voice took on a hard edge. John finally looked up into the man’s face. “You’re not done by a long shot. You are still needed. You haven’t accomplished everything you need too.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“That is a constant problem with you isn’t it. You don’t know. You see but you do not observe.”

“Sherlock, now is not the time to insult me.” John warned.

“John, you look back over your life as a line of failures and losses. Mary, your child, the army, your surgical career. You don’t recognize how many people you have touched and saved.” John cocked his head to the side listening. “Have you ever thought of all the people you saved in Afghanistan? How many families were grateful for you to be there for their sons and daughters? How many lives were restored because you help returned them home? The friends you made who still think about you and are grateful for their time with you. Then there is us. Because of you and that stupid little blog of yours, do you know how many more people we have helped? How many more crimes we have solved? Lestrade smiles now when he sees us arrive at a scene. He used to never do that. Mrs. Hudson is more patient with me because of you. You are my only friend, John and because of you I can be more for everyone else.”

John blinked away his tears.

“You have lost your partner, but you have not lost yourself. Mary would tell you this if she was here.”

“But she’s not here.”

“And she would never have been here if it wasn’t for you. For a few brief years she could be human again. She could be someone other than a trained killer. For you, she could be more. For you. Because of you. Now, enough of this doubt. I will tolerate your sentimentality but not your doubt.” Sherlock stood up and held his hand out to John.

The shorter man took the hand and pulled himself up.

“Sherlock, I can always depend on you to be a twat.”

“Yes, John. You can. Also because of you.”

“No, you had that mastered before I showed up.” John paused and looked out across the city. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We do what we always do, proceed.”

John turned and looked at the man. “Keep calm and carry on?”

“Well, a bit overdone but the sentiment is appropriate.”

“Oh dear God. You stating sentiment is appropriate. Things are worse than I realized.”

“John . . . shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I expect everyone will hate this story. It is very sad and I wrote it after a difficult day at work. I work in forensics so you can imagine.


End file.
